Reminder: vocabulary 4 is due Friday
Essay due Friday. How about calling it Colliding Worlds.
We are looking at two Native American works today: The Navajo creation legend and The Deer. Make sure you get copies if you are absent.
Please note the relationship between man and the environment. How does this contrast with the English settlers' attitudes toward the land? How are two groups spirituality expressed through their writing, pictographs or oral tales. Where do you observe potential problems in their interactions?
Navajo Creation Story
Only the Creator knows where the beginning is. The Creator had a thought that created Light in the East. Then the thought went South to create Water, West to create Air, and North to create Pollen from emptiness. This Pollen became Earth.
Light, air, water, and earth is contained in everything within nature; all of the natural world is interconnected and equal.
All of these elements mixed together, and the first thing created were the Holy People. These Holy People were given the job and responsibility of teaching what is right and wrong. Holy people were given the original laws, then they created the earth and human beings.
The Creator with the help of the Holy People created the Natural World. They created humans, birds, and all of the Natural World was put in Hozjo (BALANCE). This Hozjo (harmony, balance, and peace) is dependent on interconnectedness. All of the Natural World depends on another. The Navajo say they are glued together with respect, and together they work in harmony. To the Navajo this present world is the fifth.
The place of emergence into this level was Xajiinai, a hole in the La Plata mountains of SW Colorado. The Holy People have the power to hurt or help, and centuries ago taught the Dineh how to live in harmony with Mother Earth, Father Sky and the other elements: man, animals, plants, insects. The Dineh believe that when the ceremonies cease the world will cease.
Oral Traditions
Oral tradition refers to the process of passing down sayings, songs, tales and myths from one generation to the next by word of mouth. Native Americans did not have a written language, through they occasionally recorded myths or historical events in pictographs engraved on wood or hide or in symbols painted on strings of beads. Therefore, members of a tribe memorized the tribal literature and communicated it orally to the next generations. In some tribes, the person who had the best memory became the “keeper” of the tribe’s history, songs and myths.Indian poetry began as songs chanted to a regular beat. Sometimes complicated melodies accompanied the words. To help the singer remember the poem or song, lines were often repeated, sometimes with a slight variation in the second line. Each line usually contained the same number of accented syllables or beats. Certain images and comparisons wer also used so often that the listeners expected to hear them in tribal songs.The following songs survived for generations in the oral tradition. As you read them, listen to the rhythm and look for repeated lines and images.
From The Houses of Magic: deerPima
1. Down from the houses of magic,
Down from the houses of magic;
Blow the winds, and from my antlers
And my ears, they stronger gather.
Over there I am trembling,
Over there I am trembling,
For bows and arrows pursued me,
Many bows were on my trail.
2. I ran into the swamp confused,
There I heard the tadpoles singing,
I ran into the swamp confused,
Where the bark-clothed tadpoles sang.
In the west the dragonfly wanders,
Skimming the surfaces of the pools,
Touching only with his tail.
He skimsWith flapping and rustling wings.
3. At the time of the white dawning,
At the time of the white dawining,
I arose and went away,
At Blue Nighfall I went away.
4. The evening glow yet lingers
The evening glow yet lingers;
And I sit with my gourd rattle
Engaged in the sacred chant,
As I wave the eagle feathers
We hear the magic sounding.
5. Pittable harlot that I am
My heart glows with the singing
While the evening yet is young.
My heart glows with the singing.
6. Now the swallow begins his singing;
Now the swallow begins his singing;
And the women who are with me,
The poor women commence to sing.
The swallows met in the standing cliff,
The swallows met in the standing cliff;
And the rainbows arched above me.
There the blue rainbow arches met.
7. In the reddish glow of the nightfall,
In the reddish glow of the nightfall.
I return to my burrow
About which the flowers bloom.
With four eagle feathers,
With the four eagle feathers,
I stir the air. When I turn
My magic power is crossed.
Respond to the following
From the Navajo creation story.
1. Summarize the narrator’s movements Whatdoes he do at “the time of the white dawning”?
From The Pims
2. The Pims, as well as many other Indians, consideredthe deer to be a sacred animal.
What qualities of make them appropriate for being considered sacred?
3. How does the way in which most people regard deer differ from the Pima view?
4. What does this difference suggest about the contrasts between Pima society and today’s.
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